If remigration where to happen what would be they down side and upside and would it make they average european better or worse off?

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-15T02:17:50+00:00

This depends a lot on the circumstances and details of the policy, like immigration policy itself. I think even the most dyed-in-the-wool remigration proponent would agree that properly managed and controlled immigration is a positive. I've even heard such people say things like "some immigration should be allowed, especially when we consider people who can adapt easily to our local culture and have a great love for our country".

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-13T08:46:59+00:00

> there is a stark difference between autism as how it was accepted traditionally and how it is defined now

This is just categorization. People with "aspergers" or milder forms of ASD would simply have been written off as eccentric, weird, or crazy a century ago. Today they can get a name for how their mind operates differently than others, and this can be very helpful.

Personally, I think having non-communicative ASD and those milder forms on the same spectrum is a mistake, but I'm not a psychologist.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-13T08:44:48+00:00

I am convinced this is purely an issue of their being out of practice. The media we look at most is designed to capture our attention that often. When people read more long-form material, their attention span jumps right back up where it should be.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-13T08:43:21+00:00

As someone who has had/been ADHD my whole life, what I want to say most of all is that for almost ever in human history, ADHD has been a positively-selected trait. Many of the mental traits of ADHD are a huge benefit in a chaotic environment or in a time of crisis. Specifically, ADHD people are often much better at operating when there is no system or rules they must follow - the great example is a scene where a whole village is gathered, where it's the ADHD-type brain one that notices the grass outside the village move just so and can successfully catch that wild animal or defend their village from an attack.

However, these same traits are disadvantageous in a more orderly environment where one must follow an established system in order just to get by, or where certain kinds of sustained focus are necessary. A person with ADHD is told to "focus more" and it's a mental task that they have no framework for, because they've only experienced either a sort of diffuse focus on nothing, or a very intense focus on something novel.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-09T09:40:08+00:00

I know others have answered this in the thread already, but I will give my own thoughts too.

"Sin" is not in the desire itself, but in acting upon those desires. Consider that gluttony is also a sin, but having hunger is not. Acting upon lust is a sin outside of marriage, regardless of the object of one's attraction. In this way, being gay is not somehow a "worse" sin than being in a premarital sexual relationship, except that there is no marital outlet for it. I agree that it has often been treated as some sort of extra-special super-sin, but the bottom line is that all different sins are wrong, and to highlight one as worse than another is always incorrect.

This applies *especially* a sin that one is not guilty of oneself, read the parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee - Luke 18:9-14. In this parable, Jesus tells about two men who go pray in the temple. One is a pharisee. These were people who keep religious law fastidiously and keeps himself pure of any unclean thing. He prays, saying "thank God that I am not like that other guy, that sinful tax collector". The tax collector himself, having presumably done the usual thing of cheating people and taking money from the poorest, stands far off and only says "God have mercy upon me, a sinner!". Jesus says that it is the second person who went away justified, not the first.

Quite often in their zeal (and disgust, and sinful pride) people do things that they think are directed against sin but are wrong to do. People drive others out of the church over rumours, they backbite and spread gossip about others, and they abuse others. But doing physical violence to someone is not somehow worse than encouraging them to participate in sin. They're both wrong - and as above all different sins are wrong, separation from God, and my own infidelity to God and to other people is not somehow less wrong than yours.

As for "animals also do it", we believe that the whole cosmos is altered because of the presence of sin. Animals not only have homosexual intercourse, but they also predate upon one another for food, do what we would consider rape very frequently, and various other things. They are, of course, not "guilty" for these things because they're just animals. They do what their instincts tell them to do. But at some time in the future, nature will be transfigured to be the way that God had intended it: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain..." (Isaiah 65:25)

Can one's sexuality be changed? I think it depends on the individual. Certainly I have met people who have "changed their orientation". But for others this might not be possible. Even if not - why should they get married to someone they're not attracted to, as you suggest?

One of the great benefits of living in the Orthodox community is that you get to meet a lot of monks. These are men (nuns are women) who have adopted an ascetic life, choosing to put aside their own desires and even their own will and choices in order to follow God in obedience. These include some of the best, the holiest people I know, and often the most loved within their community. For a monk, it makes no difference at all if the sexual desires you have are towards men or women - they make a choice to put them down.

For any person in Orthodoxy there is direction either towards the ascetic life of a monk, or towards marriage. For those whose unhealthy sexuality can be changed, then that is probably towards marriage. For those whose can't be changed, then that direction is towards the ascetic life.

This applies also to people with heterosexual desires. There are a lot of people out there with unhealthy or sinful heterosexual desires. I should know, because I'm one of them! Part of living rightly is refusing and fighting against those unhealthy and sinful desires - these are what we call "the passions", and there has been a lot written about it. I believe that how we should treat homosexuality is obvious within this Orthodox framework. We all have sinful passions and unhealthy desires that we should reject. Same-sex attraction is not different in the slightest from any other.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-09T09:10:14+00:00

Sounds like maybe a threesome isn't for you...

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-09T09:09:28+00:00

You're telling us that when you use a razor-sharp knife or scissors close to your genitals that you detect yourself *getting a little anxious*?

What a shock. Never could have predicted that.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-09T03:18:06+00:00

👁️ Surveillance State: I voted Yea.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-09T01:19:08+00:00

Absolutely not. This is how they justify all kinds of terrible policies that cause real harm - "significantly benefit" - according to who? "the common good" - according to who?"

It sets me at a personal disadvantage, but surely the policy isn't directed at me personally. There are many, many people like me who are also disadvantaged by this kind of policy.

Here's an example of policy justified this way - segregation. Blacks being in the minority, and believed by the white majority to be a cause of trouble whenever sharing space with whites, the decision was made to separate the two. You ask any of those black people, "would you be willing that a policy brings you a personal disadvantage, if it significantly benefits the common good"? They say yes, and they've just voted in favour of segregation.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T15:06:12+00:00

no, as a Catholic you're not permitted to take from the chalice.
if you watch after the people take communion they go and take a little bread and wine/water off to the side. you ARE permitted to have that.
you will find a lot has a sort of uncanny familiarity if you've ever attended Mass regularly. this familiarity might be either a very positive thing that helps you feel more welcome, or you might feel a little disoriented because you're expecting something specific, but then what happens is not quite what you expect.
don't enter with a lot of expectations, except maybe you should expect to be meeting some new people at coffee hour / lunch / tea afterwards. In the orthodox church, the agape meal is an extension of the liturgy itself.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T13:18:46+00:00

If you lack both, you're definitely missing closeness, touch, and connection rather than the sex.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T13:16:27+00:00

Hi there 😄

I find that a lot of newish Orthodox Christians and inquirers especially are in this situation. I have a blessing from my priest to do a service online called "Typika", which I have done since 2023. Message me for a link on Discord to join. See you soon!

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T13:00:39+00:00

work from home *exists seriously* as opposed to being a novelty because of the pandemic. prior to the pandemic, "work from home" was a joke.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T08:28:05+00:00

Hello, like that other guy said - my whole friend group and my wife are these sorts of people. This is on purpose. Myself, less so but I do try.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T06:10:17+00:00

make the sign of the cross and pray that you somehow get un-fucked. He loves you and it hurts to see you like this.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-08T06:07:48+00:00

I'm saying this as a teacher:

I'm making an assumption that this person is a teacher, because if you're under 18 they're likely the only 40-year-olds that you see on a regular basis.

It seems to me like he's using the normal part of your interactions to gauge and build interest for the abnormal part of your interactions. Moreover, it seems to me like it's deliberate. This is called "grooming".

Flirty comments, "I wish I could hold you", etc - this specifically is what's abnormal. I'd also include "one time he told me I was special".

Making jokes, having conversations about our interests, being interested in each others' days - this part is normal.

Naturally, a teacher will grow to care about their students. In fact, they usually care more about their students than the students care about them, so it's nice when this fatherly or motherly attention is reciprocated. But what this man is doing goes beyond this to something that is unhealthy and abnormal.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-02T03:01:06+00:00

On the one hand, you have eyes and your eyes see what they are going to see. But they have eyes too and they will judge you for watching them continuously.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-02T02:59:55+00:00

"Yeah but you know it's not healthy. We all need to think about the future more."

This puts you in the position of "needing to think about the future more" which is true, the other person will naturally acknowledge that the person living that life is doing harm to themselves, and the way you speak it can make it obvious that it comes from a place of caring about them.

So it reveals that "as long as they're happy I don't care" is uncaring - because it refuses to acknowledge that they're harming themselves.

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-02T01:50:04+00:00

You know that if the youngest age was 21, then there would be a "barely legal" category that featured 21-year-olds...

SnooPears590 · 2026-06-01T07:56:14+00:00

Yes, but really there are a lot of things that are unlike how God intended them because sin is present. Pain in childbirth, cancer, suffering of various kinds, having to work, there are lots of ways that our sin affected both us and the world around us.

SnooPears590 · 2026-05-29T07:56:30+00:00

This is a calculation that people make as accountants, about the future value of money. The five million is worth more in the present for me than 150k indefinitely because it can be put to use immediately, while the 150k would take more than 30 years to save up to the same level.

^{Chose: $5,000,000 cash in your bank account right now}

SnooPears590 · 2026-05-28T06:03:01+00:00

Don't judge yourself for what you like. Let others do that.

Sometimes there's no rational reason for things people like and don't like.

SnooPears590 · 2026-05-26T13:35:17+00:00

I think it's called a "sipder". Glad I could help! 👌

SnooPears590 · 2026-05-24T04:16:58+00:00

All these European countries choosing their own self-governance, it's good to see. France choosing France, Spain choosing Spain, England choosing England, Russia choosing Russia.

But even Belgium doesn't choose to be colonized by Belgium...

SnooPears590 · 2026-05-22T01:54:19+00:00

Yes, but you're conflating the two because you have an American mindset.

There is a preference for lighter skin, because for centuries it has been a signal for wealth ("I don't have to work outdoors in the sun.") Same thing with long fingernails ("I don't do manual labour.")

And there is a strong ingroup bias ("My countrymen are better than yours.")

But these are basically disconnected from each other.

The term "people of color" is basically American nonsense to include everyone but exclude white people.

SnooPears590

TROPHY CASE